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Windows 7: Convert dynamic disk to basic disk in Windows 7

Hello guys, I am trying to install Win 8.1 as dual boot with Win 7. But all partitions of my disk are dynamic. I went through the tutorial in the help section but few questions are not clear. I have downloaded partition wizard as well.

As shown in the disk layout, there are 9 partitions on Disk 1 which is dynamic.
1) Since basic disk can only have 4 primary disks, 3 primary and 1 extended etc, so will it convert all these disks to primary and extended/logical without any data loss?
2) Which disks would be primary partition and which one would be extended/logical partition?

The problem is that you converted your HD to Dynamic which is only meant to be used to span a partition across multiple HD's. Apparently you didn't see the warning message when you added partitions.

You can only have four Primary partitions or 3 Primary and unlimited Logical. Had you asked us we would have advised you that to keep HP System, Recovery and Diagnostics Tools (OEM) partitions bootable you'd need to convert C to Logical to add any partitions adjacent to that. How to set partition as Primary or Logical.

The solution to reconvert to Basic non-destructively is to boot free Partition Wizard CD version 4.2 which is the last one which offers this as a free feature: pw422.zip ISO - Windows Live.

Download the ISO, rightclick to burn it to CD using Windows Image Burner, or use ImgBurn.

Back up the files on the newly created partitions which tipped disk to Dynamic, which will need to be deleted before disk will convert back to Basic. If Win7 won't boot you can Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console.

Finally, you should seriously consider wiping the entire HD to do a superior Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 without the factory bloatware which on HP is the worst in the industry making the worst possible install of Win7. You can create 3 partitions during install for 7, 8 and Data.

Thanks Greg for excellent step by step instructions. Actually I partitioned the C drive(700 GB) when I bought this laptop about one and half years ago. I was not aware of this dynamic and basic disk problem.

So basically I cannot get away without deleting the partitions. I created partitions from C in this sequence: G, H, I, J, K. I can delete H, I, J, K without any fear of data loss as I can download it again from internet. I will backup G and then try to convert with C, D, E and G.

Thanks whs for your input as well. AddRam, I will report back but it may take couple of days.

First I tried to convert without deleting any partition but it didn't work. It has already been mentioned but I was just curious to try it myself.

Then I deleted the partitions in the following sequence K, J, I, H, G so that I had following partitions at the end:
System Partition(199 MB)
C drive(150 GB)
Unallocated Space(deleted K, J, I, H, G)
D drive(Recovery)
E drive(HP Tools)

I tried to convert it again and it worked this time. All four working partitions were changed to primary.

Next step was to change the C drive to logical but the option was greyed out. There was option to change D, E drive to logical but I don't know why it was not available for C. Since I had already made my mind to install fresh copy of windows so I deleted C partition as well, whole unallocated space becomes one big chunk and then I created all logical partitions.

Before the above process of playing around with partitions I created bootable CD of partition wizard and bootable USB of Windows 7. I download it from the link provided by Greg.

After installation, I used windows product key from the sticker at the back of HP laptop and surprisingly it worked without any problem. I used this key for the first time.

Note: Windows didn't install the driver for ethernet and network controller. I have desktop pc as well so I downloaded the drivers using that system. If you don't have access to another system then download these drivers before starting the above process.

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